As the famous person (what they are famous for temporarily slips the mind, but rest assured it was because of a great deed, something like philanthropic philosophy.) So as the famous philanthropic philosopher stood in front of the crowd he saw not faces staring back at him, but small rectangular devices with all different lengths and colors hair flowing from them.
He could not go on with his speech without a need to address this unique situation.
“Excuse me,” he wondered at the crowd, “but why can I not see your faces?” There was no answer, only flashes and clicks that went off like waves throughout the large crowd.
“You’re being quite rude, I must say.” The famous philanthropic philosopher continued. “I mean, I was supposed to present a speech to people, to students, to do- gooders, to concerned citizens. Me, a real-live human being came to educate about the injustices going on in the world: slavery in Africa, genocide in the Middle East, poverty in the Central America, and what we are doing to help eradicate such evils in the world. Yet, I don’t speak to a room of humans, but mobile devices with hair.”
“Now who’s being rude,” spoke a Samsung Galaxy 7 with an explosive shock of fiery red hair in the second row. “We have feelings. We care about those things. We are still listening to you. Just because we are electronic devices, it doesn’t mean that we don’t hear you.”
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“Yeah,” a blue Android with curly brown haired afro chirped in agreement. “We are all ears.” The Android, buzzed incessantly. “Sorry,” it apologized, “I just got a tweet. Oh, it’s a good one. Hang a sec. ‘RT@ShawnEB: R female golfers getting hot? Or am I just into lesbians.’ HA, classic ShawnEB, favorite, aaaaaannnnndd retweet.”
The famous philanthropic philosopher stood at the stage with his arms crossed, not saying anything. He refused to address the crowd.
“Hey,” yelled out an LG G4 with a purple mohawk. “We came to hear you speak your beautiful words for us. We love your views. We believe in what you say. People we’ll be happy that we have come to hear your speech, which has helped so many around the world. We did not come to watch you just stand there.”
“Ya,” creaked on old Blackberry, with thin graying hair. I remember when the world was shit. Still is shit, but now, because of individuals like yourself, it is a little less shit.” The crowded agreed with the old phone, beeping and buzzing to show their appreciation.
“Thank you, sir, well not sir, but device,” the famous philanthropic philosopher again addressed the crowd, now that his ego was properly stroked. “And I do apologize for my earlier rudeness, but I was expecting people, not phones. I was excepting see and speak to people. I was just a little put off-”
“-Let the man see and speak to me,” interrupted the iPhone 7s with its long, flowing blonde weaves. Every other phone groaned as the iPhone took pictures of itself. “I don’t like this angle. Oh, this one’s cute, nah, not enough light, too much light, oh that’s perfect. Duckface.”
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“Ha, you got to see this kitty on a skateboard,” interrupted a LG Tribute 2 with a time set business haircut. “Oh it crashed again, hilarious. I got to share this.”
“High score,” interrupted a Motorola Droid with medium blue and blonde streaked hair. “Time to beat it, again… Right… Now.”
The beeping and buzzing filled the auditorium with chaotic noise, the lights flashed more and more. The clicks grew louder and louder.
The famous philanthropic philosopher took off his glasses and wiped them on his sleeve, then placed them back on his face. He grabbed the microphone.
“Shut the hell up,” he yelled into it and the electronic devices turned their attention back to him.
“This is what wrong today,” he continued, finding his calm voice again. “Everything is so personalized. I have a picture of myself here and I’m posting it to this Instaface site, so everyone will now where I am and how important I’ve become in my own eyes. You like that fact that I’m attempting to make the world a better place, but do you actually do anything besides that? When was the last time you donated to campaign of a candidate you believe in? Or instead of spending spring break having margaritas made in mouth, you spent that week building houses for the poor in Mexico? Or hell, when was the last time you gave you leftovers to a homeless man on the street instead of letting go to waste in your fridge?”
The room was silent, through a few lights continued to blink on and off off throughout the sedated crowd.
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“Well?” continued the famous philanthropic philosopher. “Does anyone have an answer to your own selfishness?”
“I could say anything, couldn’t I? You will all go home to your power cords and download whatever information you take from this lecture, which I gather is just to post on social media that you did you civic duty by being here tonight, but if you take
anything away, please let it be this: Remember that at one time you were actual people who actually concerned in which the way the our race was living.”
“I’m sorry,” stated a Samsung Galaxy Note with a dirty blonde crew cut. “I didn’t catch that. I was trying to get a picture of you. Do you mind posing again?”
The famous philanthropic philosopher stared dumbfounded back at the crowd.
“Okay,” he gritted at them after a short silence, “but just one, I am quite annoyed with you devices.” He strained on a smile as the lights culminated into terrific flashes
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A Sure Thing
I’d grown tired from two days of packing and needed to get out of the encompassing emptiness of my small one bedroom apartment. When my best drinking compadre texted me about getting one last good-bye beer (a good-bye beer that would last over the next two nights by the way) I jumped at the chance to escape the cavernous coffin that replaced my once cluttered apartment.
The night started off innocently. It was around eight in the evening. I was moving in three days. Uprooting the comfortable small town life that I’d carved out for myself for a shot at fame in Hollywood, The City of Angels, or Doomed Graveyard of Lost Souls, whichever nickname bests suites your mood. I wanted to turn this small shindig into a big soiree, so I sent out a mass text to friends, relatives, coworkers, the plumber, the window cleaner, my accountant, the people who came to look at my apartment, any number that lay in my cell. People texted back: ‘who is this?’ and ‘do I know you?’ and ‘could I please lose this number.’ Mostly though, there were loads of responses from people swearing they will try their best to make it at some point in the night, all of them I knew to be relatively sad I was leaving. My heart fluttered when Raven, my now former coworker with whom there have been quite a few flirtations, emphatically said she not miss it for the world.
It was a sure thing.
About two years ago, Raven plopped her bottom comfortably in the chair next to mine. I explained the boring tasks of our simple job, staring at one monitor, mashing the
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buttons on the control board, looking at another monitor to make sure the world didn’t explode, you know basic, everyday tasks. She caught on rather quickly, more so than most of the faceless cogs I worked with. They’re nice enough people, but they’ve gone insane from lack of sunlight and staring at late night infomercials for a decade.
We hardly got women in this job. Don’t ask me why, I don’t have any control over the hiring process and I thought she was attractive. She didn’t fit my usual “Standards of Beauty.” Not trying to sound shallow, but everyone has a different vision of beauty, and, I admit, mine is very high. To be fair, it has been warped by constant bombardments of Hollywood “news” shows and “Maxim Magazines,” which lulled me into false sense of believing I could be a normal schlub who bagged a Kate Upton, an Emma Stone, or a Jennifer Lawrence.
Sure, I’ve meet and seen real women too. I’ve even been lucky enough to have done sex with a few of them, but Raven was different from those real and imagined loves of mine. She had a small top placed on a set of wide hips, like both parts were meant to go with other people. She had a gorgeous face, though. Perfectly symmetrical, nothing too big or small. Her long, jet black hair perfectly draped across her broad shoulders. It always looked freshly washed no matter what time of day. She did have a small bump, protruding from the left side of her nose. Some would call it a blemish, but I always thought it was cute, a reminder that an actual human female sat beside me. Plus, I think she kind of dug me.
Our flirtations were always innocent, a compliment here, an inside joke there, nothing too outstanding, but one could sense an underlying attraction to each other. I’m not a bad
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looking guy, especially for a short, hairy man, who wears thick rimmed glasses, and whose auburn hued hair started thinning at just twenty-five years old. Pretty girls like Raven, fresh out of college, never talked to guys like me, but I guess she spent so much time next to me that she was forced into conversation, something she always insisted was the joy of her job.
It was a sure thing.
It was a few minutes past nine and I’m enjoying my first beer of the night. An
Imperial Stout, twelve percent alcohol, tasted of roasted cocoa beans with a slightly bitter finish. It’s a big boy drink. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine, beer is sort of my thing, so I’m enjoying this. Besides, this is my night to relax, my night to let loose. I’m not going to be here once the week has passed. I have no consequences tonight. No more having to explain my actions to friends, co-workers, bar patrons, the police. I hope not the police. It’d be a bad thing to get arrested four days before you change your life. Here’s to being a good boy, cheers!
As I held my beer goblet to the toast I just gave in my own head, my buddy, Craig, automatically knew what to do. He received my toast with a nod and clinked my glass to his, looking me in the eye. ‘Always look eye’ as said by the wise Mr. Miyagi. Its seven years no sex if you don’t look eye. I don’t need my drought to continue into a full decade.
“Where’s your head at, man?” Craig said, breaking the cheer. “You nervous? I mean, L.A. will be tough.”
“True,” I replied, “but I got a job lined up and I’m still youngish and pretty unfazable. Last night my opener went flat, but I kept strong and got the audience back on my side.”
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“Do you know why it went flat?” I looked in my beer and brought my head back to meet him.
“You want me to say because it was a fucking rape joke-”
“-because it was a fucking rape joke,” He interrupted almost in unison. “You should never tell a rape joke, let alone open a show with one.”
“Okay, it wasn’t a rape joke,” I smiled, responding to this silly debate. I loved playing with him like this. “To say: If you include incarcerations, men get raped more than
women, so that’s just another thing we do better ladies. It’s a prison joke at that point,” I stated a little too seriously, but then I looked over a Craig and he was laughing.
“Man, I’m just fucking ‘round with you. I love that joke. I’m gonna miss it, and I’ma miss you buddy.” With those heartfelt words, Craig raised his glass to me. He knows that tonight is for celebration, a night of bigger things to come. I’ve known him for nearly twenty years now, since our high school days together. You keep buddies like him around. He couldn’t be more different from me physically. Where I stand a height impaired 5’6,” he hulks over nearly everything at 6’8,” with the body of a long-ago college football lineman who quit exercising once his career ended. He’s a total
sweetheart. Like the IPA he drank, Craig was bold, brash, and adored by all. He was the one who convinced me to start doing stand up comedy in the first place, saying that it was the perfect medium to display my neurotic Jewish tendencies in public. He was right. I’ve never felt better in my life than these past four years. I can’t help but feel a little bad, though. Here I am, on the brink of greatness with my craft, and my buddy is still stuck in our little, hick town struggling to tell his brilliant observation-style humor in crappy open
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mics for drunks too inebriated to get any of his jokes. I’m sorry buddy. I hope you can forgive me, because I truly do love and cherish you in the best way one man can platonically love another man.
The night crawled along as Craig and I, or is it me and Craig? I’m so terrible when it comes to grammar. Anyway, as Craig and I continued to bullshit with each other, other friends poured in to the comfortable nook we’ve carved for ourselves in the crowed bar, piling more bullshit on top of ours making for fun, grand conversations. Most of these people are friends I have known since high school and college, or worked with me, or I meet at AA meetings. I’m kidding. I’m not an alcohol, at least not yet. The future is bright. Cheers. I love these people, but God, am I glad to be out of here. I’ve been in this town way too long.
At ten o’clock on the dot, which I took to be an omen, because in reality, nothing ever happens on the dot. One minute after, three minutes after, but never directly at zero. So, at exactly ten ‘o clock, Raven entered the bar in stunning fashion. Her blue jeans and red sweater hugged her body like a corvette perfectly talking a sharp mountain road curve. Her hair flowed freely across her shoulders. Her eyes smiled at me as she wrapped her arms my body for what felt like a few seconds longer than normal greeting standards.
It was a sure thing.
The night rolled along as more and more people showed up to bid me a fond farewell. Some new friends mixed in with the old and I saw the forgings of early friendships. It’s great to know that your friends will be okay with out you. It’s a little sad as well, to know
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that you were not that important of figure in their social life, and their world hardly ever revolved around you.
Raven inched closer to me as our grouping swelled and took over the whole back room. I noticed she has ordered strong Double IPA, one famous for its overly piney and citrus flavors. It is like sucking on the branches of a lemon tree in a good way. This was a serious beer and one only drinks it if one is serious about beer. This was not one to sample. You knew exactly what you were getting and you love it because you love beer.
“That’s a beer you got there,” I stated, then automatically realized I sounded like an idiot.
“Yep, it’s usually what you order at a beer bar,” she replied playfully. “It’s pretty much the only drink they have.”
“Well, duh. I just meant that’s a Hoptologist from Knee Deep. You don’t see to many people appreciate a beer of that quality.”
“How’d you know it was a Hoptologist?” She asked.
“The smell, it’s very citrus, very piney. You’d expect that color to be light, but it’s more orange than dark blond.”
“Wow, impressive, the man knows his beer.”
“Yes, I do, plus Craig ordered one right before you did.” I smiled and Raven laughed. The place was crowded, but right then, it was just the two of us.
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“You never said anything about being a beer girl. Man, if I’d known, there were so many events we could have gone to. You ever been to the Oktoberfest here? Shit gets wild.”
“I’ve been to the real Oktoberfest in Germany,” she gloated. She shifted on her stool towards me, then swayed back into a more comfortable position.
“Oh, world traveler, I see. I would love to go one day, but this one is fun enough. Last year I danced the chicken dance three times, ate a ton of bratwurst, and threw up later that evening.” I cringed, immediately regretting the statement, but Raven didn’t seem to find the movement of my bodily fluids disgusting.
“I puked in Germany,” she held up her glass and I received her toast, always look eye!
“Mmm, so good, I love that hoppy taste. So much better than Pliny the Younger,” she continued.
“I know, right?” I shrieked at her, almost falling out of my stool in excitable
agreement. “Who fucking stands in line six hours for an above average Imperial IPA?” “Especially when we have one right here that blows it away.”
“It’s mind bottling.” We both laughed. Our conversations continued in this ilk. Which breweries we’ve visited, which one’s we needed to visit, and all the eclectic beer bars we’ve been to, etc. I think I might be in love at this point. We debated which country made the best beer. I am a patriot, so I fervently argued the best country was America. She said Germany, sticking with her Oktoberfest experience. I had never met someone with as much knowledge and love of beer before. It was almost too good to be true.
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Around 11:30 our group had dwindled down to four people, which makes sense, as it was a Tuesday and most people had to wake up and contribute to society in some form the next morning. Also, the beer bar itself swept its floors and turned up its stools, ready to for us to be out of there so they could shut down for the evening. I had bigger plans though. I was four beers in at this point, all much tamer Pale Ales after that first Imperial Stout, and I was in a good place. I wanted one last beer in my oldest, favorite bar, and that’s where myself, Raven, Craig, and one of Raven’s friends who showed up with her, were going. Like characters from an all-white version of “The Wiz,” our quartet would